How much does 500MB of mobile data cost around the world?

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As smartphones become an increasingly popular delivery method for information, it’s important to take a look at the other significant cost associated with owning one of these devices. After all, you can get a discounted or old phone, but there is no avoiding paying those monthly fees. With that in mind, what does mobile data cost around the world?

In every country there are carriers feeding data to millions of users. Each country and carrier has different rules and different speeds, and with those come any number of different prices. Pricing differs wildly from country to country for many different reasons, ranging from competition to regulation to availability of technology. The International Telecommunication Union has created a report based on pricing from all over the world to show just how different things are depending on where you go.

Unsurprisingly, the US is one of the most expensive place in the world to get 500MB of mobile data, it’s not the most expensive though. This (completely unwanted) crown for the most the most expensive data plans goes to Angola which comes in at $110.

Weighing in at $85 for pre-paid data between AT&T and Verizon Wireless, the US has — by far — the most expensive off-contract price you can find in an area so full of mobile users. It’s worth pointing out that these pre-paid plans include LTE speeds where available, despite the fact that most of the US or the rest of the world has not fully deployed LTE. Russia and China, for example, sit at $27 and $24 respectively. China is not an LTE market yet, and many of their smartphones come equipped with the ability to use two services independently with Dual-SIM slots in their phones. It’s possible that the ability to rapidly switch from service to service helps keep costs down in these areas.

Seeing how much more expensive data is in the US compared to the $13.80 in France, $8.80 in England, and $12.40 in Germany is quite interesting. Accusations get tossed around frequently regarding US carriers working together to artificially raise prices on their services, but here we see the actual numbers laid out side by side and it is hard not to want answers as to why mobile data is more expensive in the US than almost anywhere else in the world.